550 Miles of New Railroad Construction-- Indonesia

[samfp1943]

Railway Gazette has  articles referencing the building of a couple of  new coal hauling railroads on the island of Sumatra, in Indonesia. 

http://www.railwaygazette.com/nc/news/single-view/view/coal-railway-project-approved.html

This is a State-owned enterprise to haul 35 million Tons per year over a 250 Km line from Tanjung Enim to a new port at Tanjung Carat.

http://www.railwaygazette.com/nc/news/single-view/view/coal-railway-project-approved.html

  And this is a private project. To be approx 307 Km long from the mine to a new port Banko Tengah to Srengsem).. Reported to built for a capacity of 20 Million Tons per year. To be built by China Railway Equipment Corp.)  Cost to be estimated at  1.06Billion US Dollars. 

   My questions :  Why do there seem to be no American companies doing some of this worK; Is it that American supploiers are precluded from bidding, do American government regulations stiffle competition for theses large projects? 

     I kind of understand the new lines in Austraila (BHP's which does seem to favor imported American locomotives).       The other purchasers seem to favor American locomotives of regional partnership manufacture (possibly due to smaller gaugings(?), and Chinese cars.           But The Mary River Railroad in Baffinland, is another project closer to the US. Which is bing engineered and built by an off-shore consortium, and some of the other anticipated mining develpopments in Labrador, as well.    

  

[tomikawaTT]

Considering that Indonesia has a large, active base of Radical Islamists and has been the scene of terror attacks against foreigners and even less radical Indonesians, why would any American company want any part of the action?  And why would the government invite problems by asking an American company to bid?

I hope our people are smart enough not to stomp through a mine field...

Chuck

[schlimm]

It is becoming an increasingly sad development when American rail engineering is no longer competitive in the world.  The last project mentioned by samfp was in Canada, so the excuse of not wanting to go where the people have a different religion and therefore might be terrorists, etc., just won't wash. 

[carnej1]

One of the links under the page cited is to an article about Indonesian Railways recent large order for GE Diesel locomotives. It mentions that they already operate a large fleet  of GE power. So at least one US company is big in the Indonesian RR market..

As an interesting aside, I recall reading that in the planning stages of the private coal company mine-to-port line, they looked at the possibility of purchasing rebuilt Chinese QJ 2-10-2 Steam locomotives as motive power. IIRC,there was even some discussion of buying new built steam engines from a Swiss or German firm. I don't think that is going to happen, though..